


Casualties in a Bloodless War

by WIWJ



Series: Of Arms [5]
Category: A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin, Game of Thrones (TV)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-02
Updated: 2021-02-06
Packaged: 2021-03-13 10:09:05
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 4
Words: 12,243
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29151780
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/WIWJ/pseuds/WIWJ
Relationships: Jaime Lannister/Brienne of Tarth, Tyrion Lannister/Sansa Stark
Series: Of Arms [5]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1678636
Comments: 8
Kudos: 40





	1. Part One

**Eleven years into King Jon's Reign during The Bloodless War.**

**On Essos' South Western Shore. (Part one)**

...

"It doesn't seem like they're responding in the least." Arya snaps, tossing her hands onto the table with a smack. 

"Which is why we need to hold our own." Jaime reminds her softly, raising his eyes from the map of Essos rolled out on the table in Arya’s tent. "If we flinch before they even appear to know that there is something to flinch at we don't come across as very strong, now do we?"

"So we wait? We just wait? I let them launch thinly veiled threats at my sister, ignore my brother and accuse us of being poor neighbors while-."

"Ser Jaime!" The tent flap opens quickly and the young Sam Tarly scurries in.

"Boy, what have I told you about-?" He hisses at his squire.

"It's the Lord Commander, Ser. Father says come quickly." Jaime's eyes shot to Arya.

"Go. Go on." They both know his ask is just a formality, he's already half out the door and to the Maester's tent before the words are even out of her mouth.

He yanks back the flap in near panic only to find her sitting on the edge of a raised cot, sniffling like a child. Gilly stands nearby, patting her back sweetly as Sam stares at her, wrinkle faced, from his makeshift desk.

His head tips back with relief, because all at once it hits him what this is. He's expected this even, the signs were very much there for him in the quiet moments they've managed to grab scraps of. Her sapphire eyes shoot to him with the most accusing look he's seen on her in -well- six years. Gilly backs up slowly as he comes towards her. His left hand coming up to grasp the shoulder she flings away from him, catching it with practiced ease and pulling her body flush with his.

"How far?" He whispers back over his shoulder at the Maester as she sniffs and sputters into his jerkin.

"At least four months. Probably more." Jaime winces, pressing his chin into her hair.

"Did you pass out?" He guesses.

"I dropped like a fucking bag of stones." She sniffs. "Gods what if I had done that in front of the Ghiscari? For fucks sake Jaime, this is the last damn thing we need right now."

"Is she alright otherwise?" He sighs towards Samwell Tarly.

"She needs hydration and she needs to eat more." Sam tells him, his eyes rising as if to wish him luck. "We'll give you a some privacy." The Maester stretches his arm out to his wife, who give Jaime as sympathetic nod before leaving.

"It's going to be alright." He moves until their foreheads touch.

"We are teetering on the brink of war." She looks up at him, lost. "The negotiations aren't going well. Sansa's army is ready to come to blows and Jon has no idea how to thread this needle. And here I am, too stupid to realize that it's not the stress, my age, the heat, being in Essos or any of the other excuses I've been making."

“Another child to raise.” He sighs. "Four children."

“Four children to keep safe during a war.” She slides her fingers around the buckles on his chest, squeezing tightly.

"Tyrion's sending his children to the Rock. Yara dispatched a ship to Bear Island, the Hound's going to get them there. I was going to tell you at dinner that it might be time to tell your father to do the same." Jaime tells her softly. "They'll be safer on the West."

He bites back suggesting she join them. He knows better.

"I really thought they'd live a life free from war." She whispers.

"I mean we really did get a little cocky, naming it the 'Last War' and all." He smirks, peeling back from her a little. "How about I get you something to eat, and have Arya brought to our tent to finish our strategy session? I'm sure she'd appreciate your tempering my enthusiasm."

"We should write Father." She swallows. "About the boys."

He nods grimly.

He has already settled her in their tent with a plate of cheese and hard meats when he sends his young squire with a letter to Lord Selwyn and went off to look for Arya.

….

"Jaime."

"Tyrion." He looks at his brother grimly. "How did it go today?"

"It wasn't totally awful." He grimaces as Jaime rubs his face. "How's my favorite Good Sister? I heard the heat got to her today."

"Yes." His brother sniffs. "We're going with the heat for now."

"Oh no." He catches his meaning immediately.

"Oh yes." Jaime sighs.

"Aren't you two getting a little old for this?" The Warden of the North's face is wrinkles up in irritation.

"Why yes, Dear Brother, we are. Thank you for reminding me." He snorts. "Care to join us for an impromptu strategy session?"

"Sansa is meeting with Jon. So yes. I'd love to not be alone in my tent." His little brother sighs.

"Try not to remind my wife we're too old to be having babies." Jaime narrows his eyes at him pleadingly.

"I'll hold my tongue." He chuckles.

* * *

"This whole nonsense is our fault anyhow." Jon mumbles running his hand over his face.

"How's that?" Sansa hisses.

"The Dothraki is what kept the Ghiscari at bay. We used them all up for a war of our own. The plague probably originated from them, or from the UnSullied." He snorts. "In saving Westeros we destroyed Essos."

"We didn't bring the Dothraki West. We didn't march the UnSullied into unknown lands."

"I asked her to." Jon murmurs.

"She would have anyway." Sansa snaps.

"When are you going to stop placing the blame for everything at her feet?" He growls.

"When are you going to stop so readily taking all of it from her?!" She raises a sharp eyebrow and Jon goes silent. "You're such a brooder. You always have been."

Jon doesn't disagree.

"I heard your Kingsguard lost herself to the heat today, that's unlike her."

"She's with child." Jon inhales deeply.

"You brought her here-?"

"She didn't know. I actually think she just found out today." He rubs his face.

"But you knew?"

"I suspected. It's the third time, I know the signs." He chuckles. "She gets paranoid, about my safety and about Ser Jaime's. If possible she wears her emotions even more tightly on her face. She gets snippy with Arya."

"I must always seem pregnant to you then." She teases.

"You glow." He tells her, leaning back and giving her a fatherly glance. "You were born for it. My Lord Commander was born for the battlefield, not this. Motherhood becomes you."

"Stop it Jon! You make me miss my babies." She blinks.

"You've sent them West?" He asks her protectively.

"The Rock's the safest place for them. Jaime is sending the boys." She whispers. "If we fail-."

"We won't." Jon tells her, his back drawing up sharply.

* * *

"You trying to pace us, Sister?" Tyrion asks her raising an eyebrow. "Match us heir for heir?"

"If that's it Tyrion, I boldly request a cease fire and that you never go near Sansa again." She whispers.

"I thought the twins would be it for her, but she's already decided that Rickon needs a brother." He groans. "Or two."

"Gods that woman." Brienne shakes her head, swallowing hard.

"You're telling me." He leans forward looking at where his brother and Arya snip at each other. "How's it coming with the two of them?"

"Arya's trying to find something to move this along before the North can't keep their swords in their sheaths any longer." The souths Lord Commander tells him. "Jaime's obsessed with the plague and how it seems to play into the Ghiscari's fortune."

"He's got a point there." Tyrion sighs. "What was left of the Dothraki was easily cut down by the plague. It weakened the other army's that may have made headway against them."

"They've lost people too." Brienne shakes her head. "I agree with the Grand Maester, it's a simple case of the people of Essos' being less hearty against the ails of Westeros. It happens. It's why we've been so careful not to allow cross contamination. Why we've relied for heavily on Yara for supplies."

"Has he tried to convince you to go home yet?" He raises his eyes brow.

"He knows better." She says softly. "I'm sure his tongue is sore from biting back the words, but he only tells me with his eyes."

"It's not a horrible idea." The Imp reminds her.

"It's not." She smiles. "But I'm still Lord Commander, and we're trying to prevent a war." She runs her hand across her abdomen and Tyrion can't help but notice that upon inspection the pregnancy shows. "And I'm probably too far along for a trip home anyhow. I guess I could go to Tarth, but is that going to be any safer if this turns?"

"Probably not."

"I'll be okay. I worked up until a month before with Renly." She smirks. "Pod and Jaime won't let me do much of anything anyway."

"Tyrion stop harassing my bride and come tell your good sister you can control your forces!" Jaime snorts, stomping away from the table where Arya stands, her hands braced.

"Duty calls." He chuckles.

"The girl is incessant." Her husband grumbles as he crosses paths with his brother. He stops before the bed, blinking at her with his creased eyes. "How are you?"

"I'm alright." She whispers, as he lifts a pitcher and pours her a cup of water. She reaches out both hands, taking the cup with one and pulling at his fingers with the other. Jaime sits beside her on mattress with a huff. "How are you?"

"I'm feeling quite old actually." He murmurs, grinning as she spits some of the water back at him with an incredulous look. "You think that's funny?"

"It's just unlike you." She grins back through her fingers as she coughs.

"I'm three and fifty." He raises an eyebrow.

"I know how old you are." She's still grinning.

"It's old to start again."

"Well ready or not." She hums.

"Tyrion and Sansa don't even try to prevent babies, we half heartedly try and end up with the same number."

"They're younger, and apparently not finished." She tells him. "We are."

"You said that last time." He doesn’t try to stop his grin from widening, moving his hand to her stomach with a shake of his head.

"I meant it too." She presses her palm to it.


	2. Part Two

**Eleven years into King Jon's Reign during The Bloodless War.**

**On Essos' South Western Shore. (Part two- six weeks later)**

….

"Jon?"

Samwell Tarly ducks into the treaty tent with his King's informal name falling from his lips, only to find he's most definitely not alone. Jon raises his eyes at Sam who clears his throat, giving him a worried look.

"Your Grace.." He murmurs, nodding to Sansa, then to the Gishcari High Priest. "Your Highness." He looks down at the paper in his hands before handing it over.

Sansa watches Jon's face as he reads, his eyes pinching together before turning to his sister, and slipping it to her. She has to bite her tongue to keep from gasping.

"Gather everyone." He tells her softly, touching her hand. She nods as she rises, her eyes never leaving the High Priest. Her Queens guard moves towards the entrance holding the tent flap open. 

"Stay with him." She whispers to Podrick Payne, laying on her way out. "Sam, with me please."

"Volantis has fallen." Jon tells his Gish counterpart, his eyes pinched.

"To whom?" The man startles, Jon notices, eyes pressing deep into his.

"To the plague."

* * *

"Where's Arya?" The King demands towards his Lord Commander as she moves another chair from along the edge of the tent wall to the large table. 

"Jaime's gone to find her." Brienne tells him. Jon turns angrily to Sansa. 

"My newly appointed Master of War still thinks he's my sister's glorified squire." He hisses, before lowering his voice and whispering to his sister. "Her stupidity in wandering off in situations like this is wearing thin." The King grumbles looking at Tyrion. "We'll have to share your Hand."

"Good thing he's quite versatile." Sansa mumbles, gesturing for her husband to sit between her and Jon. Tyrion smirks at her. "What do we know?"

"Not much." Tyrion shakes his head. "Only that their is a great amount of bloodshed, the leadership is struggling to comprehend what to do with such devastation.

"Volantis has fallen. What does that even mean? Volantis has stood for over a thousand years. It can't just cease to be." Brienne shakes her head. 

"The ramifications of this are going to have huge impacts across this continent." Tyrion looks up at Sam. "Ravens will have to be sent to each of the six kingdoms, and to Winterfell."

"What exactly are we to tell all of Westeros?" Brienne asks again in bewilderment.

"The Triarch's are dead and what's left of the Tigers are slaughtering the Elephants." Arya's voice rises as she clamors into the space with Jaime at her heels. "That's what the people are telling in the streets."

"Do we send aid?" Sam askes quickly.

"To whom exactly?" Brienne rubs at her face. "I don't really want to pick a fight with the Tigers."

"I agree." Lord Commander of the Queen's Guard Beren Tallhart exchanges a quick nod with his counterpart.

"So we do nothing, giving the Gish another gain?" Tyrion sighs, his frustration evident.

"There's nothing we can do anyhow. The plague is untreatable." Maester Theomore tosses his hands into the air.

"If that's what this is." Jaime mumbles, raising an eyebrow at Arya.

"He was surprised." Jon whispers, looking back over his shoulder at Jaime. "When I made the announcement. The High Priest. He was surprised."

Jaime seems to consider it for a moment, his eyes clicking to his wife. She bit at her lip.

"Gishcar has wanted to defeat Volantis for centuries." Jaime whines, looking around the room in exasperation.

"Again, what proof do we have?" Theomore shakes his head, looking at his cousin.

Arya raises any eyebrow at Jaime like it's a challenge. He shakes his head.

"I told you, it's nothing but a feeling."

"I tend to trust Jaime's instincts on things such as this." Tyrion sighs, looking at his wife.

"There are people smarter than us out there that think it's a plague." Meera Reed casts her suspicious eyes over the crowd. Jaime swallows back whatever he's going to say about this glorified swamp creature when he sees Arya's head shake.

"I appreciate that our Masters of Wars have differing opinions Jon, however I'm not sure the origin is any of our concern. It's the influence. The Gish will take Volantis. That leaves Bravoss and Myr, correct?" She looks at Tyrion who nods. "Once they take them, what's to stop them from crossing a very Narrow Sea? Sansa asks her, her head tilting on its axis to face her brother.

…..

Tyrion finds his brother in the war tent staring at a map of Essos, his eyes bloodshot and his posture hunched.

"Have you found all the answers?" He whispers slowly. "Did the map maker blend them into the water of the Narrow Sea? Should I get you an eyeglass?"

"You mock me." Jaime exhales slowly.

"Where's your Lady?"

"She's at the docks. She's taken to personally overseeing our supply shipments. It's her pregnancy paranoia getting the best of her, she hast to have all the control instead of most. It happens in the last few months, every time."

"I meant your other Lady." He grins.

"Arya is off being Arya." His brother doesn't look up from the map. "She's no Lady, and not my concern anymore. Just the thorn in my side."

"Is this your pregnancy paranoia? Maps?"

"Look at it Tyrion." Jaime rolled his fingers across the little red beads that marked the plague on the map. "It makes no sense."

"Explain it to me." He sighs.

"It should be fluid, moving like lava. A natural disaster." He gestures at it. "But it moves more like arrows shot from a bow, landing and spreading and stopping when it meets some unknown boundary, like an attack. " His head shakes again. "This is no plague."

"The Maesters-."

"Sam is a wonderful man, educated and kind. This is not his area." Tyrion sees a glimpse of the old Jaime in his flippant Lannister tone.

"He has known war."

"Wildling and White Walker wars, not strategy of noblemen with a history rich of battles behind them."

"And Theomore?" Tyrion raises his eyebrow.

"You should have left him in White Harbor and gotten yourself a better maester. Our cousin is an idiot." He sneered. "I'm beginning to think that's the gene pool that made me the stupidest Lannister. It makes me wonder about our Dear Mother."

"Don't talk ill of our dead mother Jaime, no matter how irritated you are." Tyrion huffs.

"Sorry." He sniffs, not sounding at all sorry.

"You should take a break, you look like shit." Tyrion announces dramatically, and Jaime coughs out a laugh before turning to him. "Jaime."

"It's Ren's sixth name day." He rubs his hand down his face, returning to the version of Jaime he loves. "And we're halfway across the world." He blinks at his brother. "Looking at a plague and seeing a weapon that I have no idea how to beat. It's been nearly six months already. Will we be home before he turns seven?"

* * *

The jars are beautiful.

That's what she's thinking as she moves the wooden box across the docks and sets them on the pallet for things that have already been through inspection and cleaning. They're a fine thin pottery that looks almost clear. She runs her hand across one carefully looking it it's perfectly curved shape.

Another wooden pallet drops heavily beside her, shaking the jars violently, her hand surges forward as they crash together.

"Sorry Ser." The other worker mumbles as she hears the shattering sound and feels the hot heat against her palm. She flinches back, the tear in her skin widening as it runs across the edge. The clear liquid from the broken container splashes up against her arm, dotting her tunic. It smells smoky, like fresh meat over a hickory fire. She inhales it deeply, her eyes blinking against the burn that hits her. She's sure there is a puff of smoke before she turns her face away coughing. When she turns back the air is clear.

"You alright?" Podrick gives her a quick look and she can feel the blood running from her clenched hand, flowing out from between her fingers.

"Yes. Yes." She sighs, running bawled fist across her rounded abdomen. "I just cut myself."

He winces at the blood.

"You should get that clean." He tells her and she tries not to roll her eyes. He's over protective when she's with child, she's relieved he hasn't yelled for someone to fetch a maester or bring a cart around.

"Take over for me?" She gives him a small smile, her unbloodied hand curving under her belly. She'll never admit how tired she is, not to him, not to her exhausted war worn husband and probably not even to herself.

"Of course." He nods and she smiles at him. When she's pregnant she always thinks of how Podrick was really her first child. Even before Jaime pushed Ty into her arms, he'd given her a child, she'd already been a mother in some weird sense. He tilts his head. "You're sure you're okay?"

"Fine." She tells him, touching him with her good hand and moving back up the hill towards the encampment.

* * *

It's the strangest feeling in the world, staring at your own body and not feeling it at all. She moves her fingers across the palm of her left hand again. Nothing. The angry cut seems to be mocking her. The deep ache is still there, but yet no sensation on the actual skin. She dabs at it again. She must have damaged something. It must have gone deeper than she thought.

She blinks. Then blinks again harder, like it will clear her muddled mind. So odd. The baby moves again, and she looks down at her stomach, seeing the faint ripples of his foot or elbow press out. She feels almost drunk. She needs more sleep. She shakes her head hard in an attempt to regain her senses.

She doesn't need this now.

"There you are. I've been looking all over for you. I sent Sam all the way down to the docks and they said you'd left. I went to the-." She pulls her gaze towards the incessant rambling and he stops. "What happened?"

She doesn't have time to answer before he's in front of her, holding her hand up to his face and examining it.

"Shit." He mumbles. "This probably needs a stitch."

"It's fine." She says, marveling at how normal her voice sounds.

"I don't think it is." He grimaces. She looks at his face, tugging her hand back.

"What's wrong?"

"There was another ugly outburst today at the treaty meeting." He rolls his eyes pulling her hand back. "Will you at least let me wrap it?"

She nods and he's moving them to the basin and holding up the ointment. He smirks at her and unscrews the cap as she holds the jar.

"About?" She prompt as he washes the area again before applying the salve and wrapping the cloth around it.

"Women and their place in a civilized society." He looks up at her, his eyes rolling. "It doesn't hurt?"

"What?"

"You didn't even flinch." He wrinkles his nose at her.

"I told you, I'm fine." She tries to pull her hand away but he grips at her wrist. "So, what was decided our place in civilized society is?"

"Sadly nothing. They were insulting and Sansa and Yara both withdrew with objection and refused to return. Jon refused to go on without them. Now they're in fucking formation-." Her spine stiffens to alert, and she feels the weirdest jolt of… _something,_ not quite like pain, up her spine. This time she winces.

"Why didn't you start with that?" She hisses, pulling away roughly. The room sways as she grabs her breast plate. She can't fully wear armor now, she's too heavy with child, but if she keeps the lacing loose and holds her cloak just right, an non observant person won't see the difference.

"Because we still have time and you were bleeding all over the damn ground?."

"Who's with Jon?" She huffs, pulling at the laces with her single functioning hand. Her heart beat has filled her ears now and she's quite sure would faint if not for her sheer will.

"Gilreen. Are you alright?" He reaches for her.

"I have to go." She snaps, still struggling with her breastplate.

"Let me help you." He snaps back. "I know a few things about working with one hand." He pushes hers away and pulls at the leather. "The more hurried you are the longer it takes. There." Brienne has the oddest desire to sink into his body and make him hold her. He must see something in her face, his eyes softening and his mouth drawing flat. He brings his hand to her chin. "Are you alright?"

"It's just a cut." She hears her Lord Commander voice the same way he does and his hand drops away with a nod.

"Yes Ser." His tone is clipped, and even, though he's not really her subordinate any longer. It's meant to pull her back to him, to disarm her. She couldn't do that now if she wanted to. 

"Are you coming or not?" She calls as she makes her way out the tent flap.

* * *

Jon and the High Priest seem to be in some type of stand off, it looks more like two men bored at a social gathering then an impending battle.

The armies back further as the leaderships stand in a huddle, wading through negotiations and waiting for a stand down they both know will come. He sighs, letting his eyes slip over the crowd.

Jaime takes in the semi circle that their contingent makes, letting his eyes slide down each person.

Sansa is rod straight, next to Yara who looks as if she might skin someone. Arya shifts beside him and it distracts him for just a second, he might have even leaned in to mutter some jape to her if his eyes hadn't fallen on his wife.

He feels something rip at him when he sees her, a hot feeling that courses through him. She's sheet white, beads of sweat on her brow, her eyes dilated and unfocused.

He watches her body sway almost imperceptibly to anyone who was not watching, but he's seen her go down before. It's a common event for her in pregnancy, but this isn't that. He must have made some kind of noise because Arya's face snaps to his, then across the field to where his eyes are trained, suddenly alert.

"Shit." She mutters. "Oh shit."

He tries to peel away without anyone noticing, moving carefully around the back of the group before speeding his stride. She doesn't flinch when he grasps her arm; doesn't startle. The heat in his gut turns to ice.

"Pod." He whispers to the man beside him, his voice low and deadly. "You're on the King now."

"Ser?" He mutters facing forward.

"Stay on Jon. This could still turn ugly." He grumbles, weaving his lame arm around his wife's chest. Podrick looks up, his eyes taking in his Lord Commanders pallor with a gasp.

"Jaime.." Brienne's voice comes out in a slow labored breath. "Something's-."

"I know." He tells her softly in her ear. "I've got you." He's pulling her back, slipping her behind her former squire before looking back a the man.

"Stay on the King." He tells him seriously. His eyes meet Arya's who gives him a firm nod before focusing a second on Pod, before her gaze settles on her brother.

He pulls his wife back towards the nearest tent.

"I can't.." Her words come out softly, but he can hear the fear in them as her body becomes heavier against him. Lannister mutters out a curse before bracing himself as she goes slack, positioning his arms so he can cradle her against him. He can't remember the last time he's carried her. He's lifted her, grasped her, and tossed her, but it's been years, maybe a decade, since he's _carried_ her. He's relieved to find he still can, at least now, when his adrenaline is racing through his body like wildfire.

He stumbles the two of them into the Maesters tent where Tarly looks up with a start.

"What happened?" The Maester rises quickly as Jaime lays her down, unclasping and tossing the white cloak to the floor.

"I don't know." He yelps, pulling off the breast plate he'd just secured an hour before, touching her face. "She's on bloody fucking fire." He pushes his palm into her cheek and winces.

Sam's by his side in an instant, he feels it too. He lets go and grabs the basin. Jaime is unbuttoning her shirt and peeling it away. She stirs in protest then, her hands raising to ward off her attacker.

"Shhh.. It's me. It's me." He tells her, watching the hitch in her breathing. He rubs his fingers against her collar bone.

"Jaime somethings wrong." She mumbles. "I feel.." Her body writhes slightly under his hands and Sam hands him a washcloth.

"Do you have pain?" The Maester asks her softy, his hand coming down to rest on her abdomen. He finds it reassuringly soft.

"No." She shakes her head. "I can't-." Her unfocused eyes land on her husband as he moves the cloth across her neck. She hisses at the coolness. "Cold."

"You've got a fever." He says by way of explanation, her face wrinkles, her eyebrows drawing tightly. Her restlessness increases and her hands grab against his jerkin before she gasps and pulls it away. He grabs her wrist, suddenly remembering the injury. "She cut her hand."

"Infection." Sam sounds relieved, but he hasn't seen what Jaime's seen. He stares at it, his mouth agape.

Sam has already started rattling off what herbs he'll give her.

"This is no infection." His voice rasps out of him, and the Maester looks puzzled, before he sees the palm.

The gash has deep back and purple edges hiss back tiny red blisters dotting the rest of it.

"How long ago-?"

"An hour. Maybe two." He swallows hard. Sam shakes his head. Tarly voices what Jaime can already see.

"It's the plague."


	3. Part Three

**Eleven years into King Jon's Reign during The Bloodless War.**

**On Essos' South Western Shore. (Part three)**

….

Tyrion rounds the corner, his stunted legs following the whooshing sound of tents dropping faster than he would have thought possible, until he reaches the perimeter that had been set up around the Maester's tent.

"Sorry sir. No one beyond this point." The Kingsguard drops his sword, blocking the man's path.

"By whose order?" He huffs.

"Maester Tarly, we're to secure the area and burn everything unessential."

"Good thing I'm from the North then. I don't have to obey Samwell Tarly or his King" He presses out, stepping over the blade and continuing on. "I'm married to a queen. I do as I damn well please."

"Jaime?" Tyrion calls, pulling back the flap.

"Oh for seven hells." Sam whines. "What part of quarantine don't you people understand." He glanced up to see Arya, his brother's partner in crime, standing stiffly at the table, smirking back at the Maester. "Who's going to advise the monarchy if both Hands fall to the Plague?"

"This is not a plague." Jaime snaps angrily, bouncing on the balls of his feet as he leans over the cot stroking his wife's face as she thrashes. He grabs her wrist, turning it towards Tyrion. "This is poison" The other man winces, leaning forward to look at it.

"We have no proof-."

"I eat everything she eats. I sleep where she sleeps. I press my tongue into her mouth as often as she'll let me." He raises a frantic eyebrow. "Explain to me how I haven't gotten it!"

"The docks." Tyrion looks up at him. "You said she was at the docks."

"She's eight months pregnant. You really think that any of her men are going to let her touch anything that hasn't been cleaned and cleared?" He rears back and rakes his good hand through his hair, smacking his gloved wooden one against the tent pole. Tyrion winces as it clangs loudly.

"Jaime." Her voice stills him, and he drops back towards her as she reaches for his face. "Be calm.."

"I'm sorry." He whispers.

"Shh.." She rubs at his cheek for a second before blinking hard.

"I knew this wasn't-." He's almost whimpering to her. Tyrion watches his brother's guilt with morbid curiosity. "I should have been more insistent. I should have made them-."

“You tried.” She soothes.

"We need to know the source." Arya tells him.

"We need to know the antidote!" He yells at her.

"Shh.. Jaime. Stop." Brienne grasps his chin. "The jars."

"The what?" He whispers, his hand clasping hers and pressing his mouth to her knuckles.

"At the docks. I cut myself on-." She shakes violently and Jaime's face breaks, Tyrion winces and looks away. "Ask Pod. It's the jars."

Jaime looks back over his shoulder and Tyrion’s eyes follow his to Arya, before she nods and slides out of the tent.

"Okay." His brother coos softly. "Rest now."

"Jaime.." It's a warning.

"I'll calm. I'll calm." He exhales slowly, kissing her hand again before settling onto the stool next to the bed.

"How is she?" Tyrion asks Sam, the Maester swallows hard.

"Not good."

"The baby?"

"No way of knowing." He shakes his bearded face and Tyrion feels the weight of all this in his guts. "We're treating what we can, but-."

The Hand of the Snow Queen nods once before looking back at his brother. Jaime has their joined hands pressed against his forehead as he sniffs. Brienne's thumb slowly trembling as she strokes his temple.

"Keep me apprised" He tells Tarly.

"You shouldn't leave this area." He tells him weakly.

"Did you not hear my brother?" He whispers at him through clenched teeth. Tarly rubs his face.

"You should at least bathe before touching your queen."

"I'll try to refrain from pressing my tongue in her mouth." He hisses.

….

Pod tells her that the jars were for the Gish, she'd considered going through official channels, but she knows that would take precious time negotiating and she doesn't have that. What she has is a bag full of faces, Needle and nimble feet. 

She's made it past their lines, blending into their staff. The jars are either meant to be for food or for hygiene, so she figures cooks and maids are a solid start.

Cooks make the most sense. So she's standing in their kitchen dressed as a young serving girl, her eyes from someone else's face scanning slowly back and forth until she sees what she thinks Pod has described on a counter.

"What are these?" She asks innocently.

"Spices. A gift from Naath." The man snips.

"Are we to use them?"

"Tomorrow, there will be boar." He tells her. "Now on with your work, girl."

She acts as if she'll move off as he resumes his stride. Arya carefully plucks the four jars from the counter, wraps them and places them in the padded bag she's carried under her apron.

…

"What of the broken one?" Theomore asks, peering at the jars on the table that had been set up outdoors.

"Podrick said one of the men tossed it near the shore. He sent someone to look."

"And the man that handled it?" The Northern Maester's eyebrow rose. "He's not showing symptoms?"

"Seems fine." Arya nods. "Samwell looked him over."

"So it's because it broke the skin then." The man murmurs to himself.

"Tarly says there are blisters in her nasal passages and down her throat." Arya responds.

"It's possible it smelled nice." He sighs. "I'll need to talk with her."

"It's best that you stay away. Just in case this is transferable." She tells him.

"It's not." He shakes his head. “We should have known.”

"Ser Jaime has always known." She looks at him gravely. “You should stay away."

"He's angry?"

"That is not a strong enough word.”

She is still there in the clearing with him when Pod appeared.

"Ser Topham found the remains of the jar." He swallows, his voice rasping. "Everything around it was dead. The moss the grass, the insects.. Dead."

Arya blinks, looking down at her feet before raising her head. 

"Please tell my cousin I'm sorry I didn't take his concerns into stronger consideration." Maester Theomore asks Arya softly. She nods once before gesturing for Pod to follow.

….

"How is she?" Tyrion turns towards his good brother’s voice with a wince.

"Not good, Your Grace." He tells him gravely. "Labor started this afternoon. They've put her under as much as they safely can with the baby, trying to slow it."

"She's known for long labors." Jon remembers.

"Yes." Tyrion nods. "Long and hard. They're trying to encourage it to be long, but not as difficult. She'll need strength if she makes it to delivery."

"If?" Jon looks past him at where Tyrion’s brother remains on the chair, his face pressed into his wife's shoulder, his hand brushing her hair as she restlessly sleeps.

"She's not expected to survive, Your Grace." Tyrion tells him blankly. The King of the North swallows hard. "Tarly suspects the inflammation will track into her lungs and kill her. He hasn't much hope for the babe either. It's early yet."

"Your brother?"

"Defiant as always." Tyrion snorts sadly. "Says Tarly's yet to be right about anything so far." 

Jon's lips slip into a grin.

"He's not wrong." Jon tells him, holding his grim gaze until he looks over his shoulder. The King turns to find his youngest sister standing there.

"Jon." She looks somewhat worriedly into the tent at Jaime. "The Gish are ready to receive us."

He nods before turning to Tyrion.

"You coming?" The half man's head bobs as he slips off the chair and follows silently.

…

"Jaime.." Her voice sounds foreign in her own ears. His head lifts just enough to let her know he's heard her. "I'm dying."

"You're not." He tells her, faking a smile. "You're sick, but your not dying. The poison is meant to be ingested-." She winces at him, her hand tracing his jaw. "It's-."

"Stop." She whispers. "I have things to say."

"I refuse to hear them." He tells her, catching her hand and pulling it from his face. He looks at her fingers instead of her eyes. "You need to rest. Tell me later."

"Jaime you have to-." Her voice hitches when she feels the familiar pain ripple through her abdomen and he wordlessly releases his hold on her hand and moves his palm across her torso soothingly. She grips at his wrist as her eyes clench shut. "How long-?" She asks in confusion, the strength of the contraction and his immediate reaction to it let her know this was expected.

"A few hours." He tells her softly, stroking as her body peaks and starts to settle. "Sam's kept you sleeping."

"Hours." It's real then, not practice, not stoppable."It's too soon."

"I thought you were dying anyway." He sniffs, his eyes returning to her face.

"Jaime." Her voice is full of irritation and he smiles.

"That's it. Stay angry at me." He pulls his hand back down until her fingers twine again with hers.

"I'm not-. I need to tell you-." Sam appears over his shoulder with a cup and she narrows her eyes at him. "Jaime..no."

"You're too weak for this battle." Her husband tells her. "You need to rest, so you can bring this child into this fucked up world." He moves his stump behind her head, lifting it enough to press the cup to her lips. "We'll talk later."

The world blurs and she feels his lips on her forehead.

….

She dreams she's being crushed by an Undead Giant, like Lyanna Mormont. She's thrashing at it with Oathkeeper and screaming. She can hear Jaime's voice from somewhere, soothing her, telling her to hold on. That it's almost over. That he's here with her. That she's going to be okay. But all she can think is that she's going to die. __

_ She's going to die. She is going to die. _

The world becomes more real, more concrete and she realizes he's holding her tightly to his chest as she surges off the cot. Gilly is between her thighs and the woman's husband paces in the background.

"The baby hasn't come down." The midwife says over what Brienne realizes is her own scream.

"Jaime." Her throat is raw and she can taste the coppery residue of blood in her mouth as she swallows. "What's-? I-." The giant is back, he takes any breath she has for speaking as he comes. Her hands claw at her husband's tunic as her body convulses on it's own. 

_ Pushing _ . She realizes suddenly.  _ She's already pushing _ .

One hand goes to the back of her thigh without thinking, pulling it into her chest like she has twice before. Jaime's eyes flash with something akin to pride and he drops his forehead to hers.

"There she is." He sighs into her ear. "There's my warrior. You can do this."

She's not sure she can.

…..

Arya is steadfast in the doorway, her eyes on her former guard and his wife. She's stayed close, she knows if the Lord Commander succumbs, it will fall on her or Tyrion to contain Jaime.

When she let Jaime's brother know this, her sister had turned a horrible shade of white and burst into uncharacteristic tears. Tyrion had decided to remain with her, so here she was.

The Gish were confused, enraged, and grateful that the plot had been discovered. Jon had made a point of saying that two women had been instrumental in keeping their entire entourage from feasting upon poisoned boar. They hadn't seemed impressed.

Brienne cries out again, which Arya takes as a good sign. Dead women don't scream. Tarly looks terrified, his tiny wife less so. Arya figures Caster's daughter had seen her fair share of difficult births in her life, and probably her fair share of dead sisters.

"I can't." Brienne collapses sideways into her husband, her body going slack. "I can't do it."

"Just one or two more." He lies. Arya can see the baby's head still appearing and disappearing with each surge. That's not a baby one push away, not even for a strong woman like Brienne, who at the moment, looks weaker than Arya has ever known her.

"Jaime I swear to you, I can't." Her body presses forward automatically with the next contraction but she doesn't aid it in any way. "I can't. I can’t. I-."

"Help her." Gilly says softly. "Get behind her. Use your weight." Jaime gives her a quick look of terror, but he complies. Arya's eyes widen as he climbs onto the cot. With the next contraction the two of them practically bend the woman's body in half, Gilly pressing back her thighs as Jaime leans her forward. Gilly grabs his right forearm and positions it at the round apex of her abdomen. "Push with her, down towards my hands. Steady and firm till I say stop."

Brienne doesn't scream anymore, she simply moans her head tucked against Jaime's throat as he and Gilly work in tandem. Tarly has turned away completely. Arya couldn't, no matter how much she wants to.

"There. There." Gilly yelps, her hand coming free of Brienne's thigh and grabbing at the baby's head. She jerks it down far my violently then Arya thinks is necessary and it squeals in protest as she pulls it free. "A boy." She yells.

"Of course." Arya startles as Tyrion is suddenly by her side. "It's always a boy with them."

"Sam." She grabs her husband and pushes him back towards Brienne's open thighs. She's frantically unbuttoning her shirt and the next thing Arya knows she's shoved the smallest baby she's ever seen inside it and between her breasts, turning his head up and out. Sam bustles about, disconnecting the baby from it's mother and as soon as she's able to move to the table slapping a hat on the infant and pressing a blanket on top of herself. She rubs at him vigorously and he whimpers and sputters out a weak little cry. "That's it." She whispers. "That's it."

"Is he?" Jaime sounds farther away then he is.

"Alive." She calls back. "He's alive."

"A name." Jaime whispers, leaning against the tent poll, Brienne's head lulls back against his right shoulder and he cradles her neck in his remaining palm. "He needs a name."

"It's your turn." She tells him, her voice like liquid exhaustion.

He wrinkles his eyebrows for a second before he nods.

"Jon." He tells her, and her face slips into a smile. "We'll name him Jon."

Arya gulps softly against the sudden tightness in her throat as Jaime Lannister kisses his wife softly.

"Sleep." He whispers. "You need to sleep."

His flesh fingers slip around to her neck and he slides them around her sweat soaked skin until he finds what he's looking for. Wetting his lips and letting his eyes sink shut against what she realizes is the steady beat of her pulse. His breathing slows as he presses his lips to her forehead. 

Sam has finished with Brienne and he pulls a blanket to her waist before joining his wife.

"Bleeding?" She asks quickly.

"Normal." He tells her. She pulls her shirt back a little and he looks at the babe.

"He's strong." Gilly whispers as his little face bobs against the side of her breast. The two exchange worried glances. "Maybe I'll be able to?" She looks at Sam he winces. "Enough for a newborn."

"It's been seven years since you've put a babe to breast." Sam shakes his head.

"Sansa can."

Tyrion's voice rings out clearly, but Arya can't understand what he's saying. The twins are five. She can't possibly still be nursing. She isn't their fucking Aunt Lysa. He meets Sam’s eyes.

"There was a loss." He announces grimly. "Just before we arrived here. She stil hasl-. She can.." He reaches out his hand and grips Gilly's arm. "Come."

Arya follows them back to her sisters tent, because she finds she can't not. She stands outside and watches through the flaps as Tyrion approaches her gently, whispering something. 

She hadn't stopped crying yet, her little sister realizes, but she wails at his words, louder still when Gilly pulls the tiny babe from her shirt and helps her get him settled in Sansa's. Tyrion climbs to sit on the table beside the chair she's in, stroking her hair as she sobs. Gilly pulls the blankets around her as Brienne and Jaime's tiny baby suckles at her sisters breast.

…

"You could have told us." Jaime whispers softly from where they sit on the floor, leaning against Tarly's desk.

"It's not something you send in a raven for." He rubs his face. "Or lean over a treaty table and whisper."

"Brienne said you and she talked about the children. It would have been an appropriate moment."

"On the day she finds out she's pregnant?" His eyebrows arched and he looked at his older brother like he was insane. "That's the day I tell her?" His voice picked up in pace the way it did when he was talking about a difficult thing.

"'A baby! How nice, Good sister! My wife woke from a nap just a few months ago with a shiny thin skinned eel of a thing between her knees. Let me tell you how it twitched when you touched it until it suddenly didn't, or how we had to pry her hands off the thing after three days, and how bits of it stuck to her chest. Oh and Congratulations.'" Jaime was looking at him like he might be ill. "Sansa is strong. She recovers from losses and horrors better than anyone. Your babe will help her heal from this one." He patted Jaime's hand. "And if on the small chance that you need us to be, we will be here for you and the boys." His brother swallowed hard. "You will not be alone, Jaime. We will be here. Do you understand me?"

The older man's chin trembled as he nodded, batting angrily at his eyes.

"He said your baby might die overnight and he lived. He's going to outlive that fat little twit by decades, you'll see."

Jaime snorted out a laugh starting to sob. His face tipping forward and onto Tyrion's shoulder.

"Oh Jaime." He sighed, cupping the back of his head. "I'm so sorry."

….

"You'll take them to Sansa." Brienne tells him.

"Stop."

"Don't let them be motherless, Jaime. You know what that's like. Take them to Sansa." Her breath rattled out of her chest as she spoke and he closed his eyes and pressed his face into the mattress at her neck.

"I won't."

"You could marry." She wheezes. "You and Arya have a kind of love…"

"Fucking Hells Brienne, shut up." He growls, his hand pressing into her hair.

"Don't close yourself off. Don't do that. You'll want to. I wanted to when I thought-. I wanted to end it." Her words are staccatos with her breath and it makes his chest hurt.

"I will." He tells her, his voice like a child. "I'll close myself off if I damn well please. I throw myself out of the windows of the Rock. I'll do it in front of the boys before they're sent off to the fucking North."

"Don't be hateful, Love." She whispers, her fingers resting on his damp cheek.

"I'll be anyway I wish." He snaps. "If your so keen on leaving me you don't get a say." He hisses and she carefully moves to face him so she can press her dry lips to his snot covered face. "You want to die, I can't stop you, but I won't give you my bloody permission!" He sobs. Since he's started with Tyrion he can't seem to stop. "I won't soothe your conscious. You and I both know I'd be destroyed, the boys destroyed. You have to live."

"Darling." She whispers. "I'll try. I'm trying. I am."

"You have to live." He sobs.

….

"He'll die if she does." Arya says softly. She and Tyrion sit together on a log in a clearing outside his tent as Sansa nurses baby Jon. Tyrion looks at her with understanding.

"Probably." He sighs.

"He can't live for himself." She blinks.

"He never has. He wouldn't even know how." Tyrion adds. "He lived for Cersei, and every horrible thing he did was for Cersei. Then he lived for Brienne and every blessedly honorable thing he's done since has been for her. He's never been just Jaime. He wouldn't know what that was."

"He blames himself. For not holding his ground, about it not being a plague." She looks at the dusky sky. "We should have believed him."

"Would it have mattered? If we would have acted we would have acted on the Gish, started a war. And it wasn't even the Gish."

"The Naath are a peaceful people Tyrion." Arya shook her head.

"Not all of them." Came a rumbling voice from behind them as Davos came to sit. "Grey Worm. He ended up there after Danerey's was killed. Apparently he's convinced a few hundred of his closest friends to join him."

"The remaining Unsullied." Tyrion's mouth falls open.

"And a handful of fast multiplying Dothraki." The older man adds.

"Revenge." Arya shakes her head. "We should have known it was about revenge."


	4. Part Four

**Eleven years into King Jon's Reign during The Bloodless War.**

**On Essos' South Western Shore. (Part four-one week later)**

* * *

Arya Stark leans back against the fluffy pillows of her sisters bed as she watches Sansa's long fingers stroke the baby's cheek as he nurses. 

"He looks bigger." She says with a soft curiosity that makes the queen's eyebrows arch. 

"That's what babies do." She grins. "Grow."

"You.." Arya stops, collecting her words. "Why didn't you say anything?" Sansa looks at the blank wall of the tent, her eyes narrow. "About the one you lost?"

"I'm not quite sure what I'm supposed to say." She sighs. "I hadn't really thought yet, that it was going to be. Not really, hadn't spoken with the Maester. Or Tyrion. It was still early yet and then it was over. It seemed silly to grieve something that never was."

"But you did grieve." Arya says softly, her brown eyes blinking at her sister. 

"I did." She smiles sadly. "I failed at the one thing I've proven good at, as a woman."

"Failed?" The younger Stark girl shakes her head rapidly. "How did you-? Women have babe's slip all the time."

"Not Mother." She whispers.

"You're twice the mother she was." Arya spits the words out before she has a chance to consider them. Sansa's brow wrinkles. "You.. you accept them. You accept Lyanna for who she is, you never forced an embroidery needle into her nimble hands. You love Rickon for all he's not, you never screamed to the Gods that he was cursed and flawed or maimed. The twins my gods Sansa you birthed twins while ruling a kingdom. You will show them that strength comes from with in and not without."

"I-."

"You don't have to try and be her." She can't stop the words now, the fall from her mouth without effort. "You are better than her. You have been to the seven hells and back and you are not bitter. You are here, trying to stop a war, not start one based on senseless revenge. And if Tyrion had come with a Bastard babe you would have loved him."

"Arya." Sansa breathes. 

"You have not failed." Arya Stark grimaces angrily as she swats a tear from her cheek. "You have made it better. You have been better." 

The oldest Stark sister lifts her nephew to her shoulder and crosses the room to her sister, wrapping her free arm around her and pulling her close. 

"You have been better." 

* * *

"Do we have to worry about the Dragon?" Sansa asks him, her face flat.

"No." Jon's voice is strong and clear. "We don't."

"You're sure?" She pushes him. "I woke up in the middle of the night worrying about dragon fire."

"I am." He looks straight ahead. "I can swear it to you, I just can't really articulate it to you."

"Can you make me understand?" She pleads.

"Drogon's loyalties don't transfer with Dany's allegiance, it's more primal, instinctual." Jon sniffs. "Besides, it's at peace."

"You can.." She pauses, trying to formulate her words. "Feel it?"

"Sort of?" He gives her a quick shrug. "It's hard to explain."

"My older brother can sense dragons. My sister wears people's faces and my younger brother is some kind of condescending, all seeing, warging dullard." She snorts. He turns to grin at her. "I'm feeling quite bereft of magical abilities right now, Jon."

"I don't know, from what I hear your keeping an infant alive." He reminds her, gesturing to the baby that is wrapped around her in a sling. She smiles at him, stroking her fingers across his fuzzy golden head. "I.. I'm sorry for your loss Sansa."

"Thank you." Her face sets into a small sad smile. "What will we do? About Grey Worm?"

"I haven't the slightest idea." He sighs. "Ser Davos thinks he can speak with him. I'm not sure. I don't understand their logic here? Use the Gish to destroy Essos, then destroy the Gish?"

"Maybe they meant to make it look like it was us? So that the Ghiscari would rise up?" She looks forward again, determined.

"Possibly, but a strong opponent needs good leadership. Destroying that leadership would be doing us a favor." He grunts. "Unfortunately the one person who's opinion on this I would most value is currently occupied."

"He'd surely come if you called for him." Sansa whispered.

"He wouldn't." Jon shook his head. "Have you seen her?"

"No, I-. The Maesters don't want the baby exposed. In case there is anything that has developed secondary that could potentially harm him." Her hand goes back to the boy's head.

"It's not pretty." Jon lifted his eyes. "He's not managing well."

"I'd suppose not." She bit her lip. "He's not a strong person, not really."

"He looks worse than her."

Ahead of them, Pod pulls back a tent curtain and they take their place at the treaty table. Tyrion turns and looks at his wife with a smile before pulling the cloak to obscure the baby from view. She lets her fingers slide over his hand as he pulls it away.

* * *

"Sam!" Jaime's sharp voice shakes the Maester out of the book on Ghiscar he was lost in. "I need you to come." He almost rolls his eyes. Since moving Brienne from the Maester's tent to their own he's been summoned by Jaime Lannister more times then he has by His Grace in the eleven years he's served King Jon.

"I tried to send your boy, but I couldn't find him." He spits.

"He's with Ser Pod at the negotiations today, remember?"

"That's today?" Jaime runs his hand across his scruffy face. It's been at least a week since he's had any type of hygiene.

"Yes Ser." Sam sighs patiently. "What's the problem?"

"Her breathings changed. It's.. slowed." He swallows. "And her skin is different-."

Sam feels a sense of dread building in his gut. Is this the day he's going to have to take the Master of War by the shoulders and tell him it's over? That there is no more fight, there is no miracle about to occur and his wife is going to die? He hopes that she'll last through the negotiations. At least then he can have Arya and Tyrion here.

"She's slept the majority of the day."

He ducks into their tent, and makes his way worriedly to the bed. She looks peaceful and for that he's grateful. He's hoping she'll just slip away, sparing her husband the dramatic ugliness death can become. He figures maybe she's the type of person that would do that. He drops to sit on the edge of the mattress, his hand brushing against her face and finding her cool. Not unpleasantly cool, but the easy kind, like a clammy child moments from waking from a nap. He leans forward, listening to her slow even breaths, watching her chest rise and fall. Her pulse thumps steadily at the pads of his fingers. She stirs at his touch, moving languidly, but not waking. Sam squints at her.

"What? What's wrong?" Jaime Lannister rocks back on his heels, his body thrumming with worry and exhaustion.

"She's…" He looks back at the woman, hearing the frantic breathing of her husband behind him. "Better."

* * *

"I want to be sure we all understand what we're talking about here, Your Highness. I want there to be no misunderstanding between our people. The North wants prolonged peace. My people have lived a decade in war. They have no want for it." The baby makes a squeak at Sansa's belly and she looks down quickly before rearranging him higher, her hand deftly unhooking the wrap of her dress and guiding his head into it with the practiced ease of an experienced mother. She stops to adjust her cloak around him. High Priest Hosanden's disgust is clear on his face.

"You expect me to take your sister seriously as an equal when she brings her child to teat during this?" The man asks Jon, his hand gesturing with a sneer. The King holds his face with it's usual passivity, not saying a word.

"It's not my child, Sir." Sansa continues. "It's my nephew. I'm saddened to say his care has fallen to me because his mother is quite ill. She's two weeks battling the poison plague that wiped out three fourths of your continent."

"Two weeks?" His mouth slips open, despite himself. From every account he's heard, people don't make it two weeks.

"Yes. She's quite strong. And though you have continually mocked my brother for having a woman in charge of his security, I would have you reminded that woman bested your own. She was not about to have us feast on festered boar after all. She managed to save your people as well by unlocking the mystery of where the threat had been hidden. In her spare moments since, she's been giving birth to her son and fighting for her life." She looked back at baby Jon, nestled safely in her arms. "It's the least I can do to feed her infant while we work out the details of the truce she made possible. The least you can do is not allow it to interrupt."

"It's indecent." He snorts.

"I'm sure to some." She blinks. "As Dothraki mating ritual, and the habit of cutting off young boys genitalia to make them better fighters are to us. Different cultures have different decencies. If you are to be a player on the stage with us I suggest that you learn that lesson quickly."

"And what would your husband think of your actions? Or is he simply a handsome slave bound to your castle bed used to sire heirs?" He looks at her irritated. Sansa smiles, turning her gaze to left, and Tyrion can't help but snort when he sees her face.

"What do you think of my actions, My Love?" She asks him unblinkingly.

"I find them quite typical of you, My Dear." He says drolly. "However this handsome slave is much more interested in what the High Priest feels is the future of his people, than in what his thoughts are about my wife's bosom or my worthiness as a sire of heirs."

The latest conqueror of Essos looks from Sansa to Tyrion with mild surprise before looking back at Jon.

"On behalf of the Sibling Kingdoms, if we've exhausted your curiosity about my younger sister's form and fertility, perhaps we could return to her question? Just to clear up any ambiguity in our truce before setting out on a joint mission?" Jon ground out, hoping that he could still look forceful beneath his decadent crown.

To his surprise, the High Priest simply nodded.

…..

She awakes to find her husband snoring open mouthed beside her. She can't help but grin.

"Look who decided to join us." Comes Tyrion's smart mouth from a chair near her bed, and she turns to him. Arya looks up from the pieces of the game they've been playing. "Oh good, she hears me! I was worried she'd lost her hearing when his snoring didn't wake her."

"I'm used to it." She reminds him, her mouth stretching into a sly grin. Something's different, she feels lighter. Tired and achy, but somehow stronger than she should. She pulls up slowly, trying not to jostle Jaime, whose hand has taken shelter it's permanent home on her hip. She closes her hand over it to hold it in place as she slides. She takes a deep breath reveling in how easy it feels. "Am I dead?" She's asks, her eyes suspect.

Tyrion laughs, but it's Arya who smirks before answering.

"Not today."

…...

"I think it's a horrible idea." Jaime growls.

"It's not. It's a show of strength." She huffs. "One that I think is necessary, especially after Sansa's little outburst."

"Oh yes. The Snow Queen speaks the truth and there for you have no choice to storm from your sick bed to reassert your dominance after you had the gall to show vulnerability by having a fucking baby." Jaime snorts. "One you haven't even seen yet, by the way."

"Sam wants to wait just a little while longer, just-."

"Sam is a bloody idiot." He snips.

"Sam kept has kept me alive for the past-."

"Of course he has." Jaime's voice is nearly venomous, she blinks at him.

"Why are you angry at me?" Her voice is puzzled.

"I'm not!" He shouts, before exhaling slowly in surprise. "I'm not." She's frozen, watching him rub his face before slowly standing and dropping his head to hers and kissing her hairline. He doesn't look at her. "Do what you think is best."

"Jaime." She whispers after him as he makes his way to the door.

"I-. I'll be back." He brushes through the flaps of the tent, passing Arya on the way without comment.

"Sorry about that." Brienne whispers at her, the other woman blinks. "He's frustrated, with everything." She swept her hand back and forth in the air dismissively. "You know how he gets when he sits still too long. It's not good to cage a lion."

"So you're still planning on going then?" Arya says softly.

"Of course I am." She sighs, rummaging through the chest next to the bed.

"Of course you are." Arya repeats back to her. Brienne stills, her eyes clicking to the other woman's. "You've been conscious for like 13 hours now. Definitely time to suit up and go off to confront the man who nearly wiped out a continent, with you as collateral damage."

"I figured you'd understand better than anyone."

"I do." Arya looks at the floor for a second before huffing uncharacteristically and dropping into the nearby chair. "You're just wrong."

Brienne lifts one eyebrow with a dangerously amused smirk on her lips.

"Enlighten me, oh Wise One." She purrs.

"How much do you remember?" Arya whispers.

"Very little." Brienne looks away with a grimace.

"He remembers every last second." Arya reminds her. "It wasn't pretty. He didn't fair well."

"He's stronger than he seems." Brienne assured her.

"Not with you." The younger woman shook her head. "With a lot of things, yes. But not with you."

"I'm okay. I'm going to be okay." She reminds her. "He'll be okay too, and the sooner things get back to normal-."

"This is why I'm not the Lady of Storm's End." Arya tells her, like it makes perfect sense.

"Because Jaime likes to sulk?"

"Because I'd be the same way. I'd want to charge back into battle and I'd be too afraid of looking weak to see my husband needed me more than I needed revenge." She shook her head again, her braid swinging. "I'd probably forget about my baby too."

"I have not forgotten about my-."

"That's where he is, you know." She tells her. "Holding the baby. It's why I'm here. It's why I've been here at this time every day since the day after I stood over there and watched him and Gilly wrestle the little thing out of you." She points to the spot where she stood. "Because he wants to hold the baby, but he didn't want you to be alone. So I'd come." She shrugs. "And I could never have been the Lady of Storm's End because I couldn't possibly stand the responsibility of having anyone love me as much as Jaime loves you."

"Jaime will be fine." Brienne says softly. "This is not the first time we've argued about my work and it won't be the last, but he knows who I am. He's always known." She looks at Arya soundly. "Just as the Lord of Storm's End knows who you are."

Arya's feet scuff the dirt floor.

"But you've made your point." She smiles at the younger woman, laying her hand on her shoulder as she walks by. "Thank you, for being there for him."

…..

Brienne finds Jaime asleep on Sansa and Tyrion's bed. His legs stretched out in front of him and the tiniest infant she has ever seen laying against his bare chest and a fur covering the two of them He has the same shock of blonde hair that each of her boys have had.

"They're both exhausted." Sansa whispers from the table, pressing her needle into her fabric and pulling it back out again. "It's been a long few weeks."

"It has, Your Grace." Brienne murmurs, her eyes on the steady wrinkle of Jaime's brow, even in his sleep.

"I've been taking your child to my breast, Brienne, I think we can skip the honorifics." She smiles. "I hear you want to go to Naath?"

"Arya has already made me feel like a horrible person, Good Sister. You may refrain." The Lord Commander sighs as she drops her shoulders.

"Good." Sansa blinks at her. "Then kindly take your husband and your hungry little babe and leave me be." Brienne raises an eyebrow in surprise, Sansa pretends not to notice, her eyes returning to her fabric.

"Samwell thinks it's best-."

"Samwell said repeatedly, the two of you were as good as dead." She looked back up at her. "He's not really an expert in these matters. My good brother seemed to have things well in hand, I'm fairly certain he kept you both alive with the sheer force of his will. He's quite something, now remove him from my sight at once."

"Yes. Your Grace." Brienne teases, watching the edges of the Snow Queen's lips rise just a little. She crosses the room to Jaime, laying one hand tentatively on her son's tiny round head. "Hello there." She whispers, carefully extracting him from his father's arm. Jaime's left hand clutches at the air as Brienne raises the babe up to study him, her husband's eyes snapping open at the loss. "Look at you. Aren't you just the spitting image of your father."

"He has your eyes." Jaime's voice is thick with sleep and Brienne finds it makes her want to cry. She pulls the boy to her chest, and he makes a tiny little mewling sound that makes her breasts ache. She runs her fingers into Jaime's hair and he swallows back a whimper.

"Come on." She says softly. "Let's give the queen back her chambers."

….

In the end, it's decided Arya will go to Naath and both sets of Lannisters prepare to return to the Narrow Sea to the Snow Queen's private boat, a gift from Yara Greyjoy for Sansa's coronation, headed for the Rock to collect their cubs.

Brienne and Jaime are bickering about how soon is too soon to return to King's Landing when Pod pokes his head into their tent.

"Lord Commander? High Priest Hosanden would like a word." He tells her, his brown eyes wide as saucers. Jaime's back goes rod straight and he reaches the baby out towards Pod, and hands her Oathkeeper, despite the fact she's in an azure blue tunic dress and her hair is loose and in her face. She looks at him like he's insane, but finds herself strapping on the scabbard just the same.

He's at least dressed, if not armed. She should have put the damn sword on him.

Jaime makes his way to the flap, giving a slight bow before opening the tent to the Ghishcari.

"Your Highness." He mumbles.

"Master Lannister." He bows slightly. "Your King told me I'd find his Lady Guard here."

"You will." He says softly, looking over his shoulder at his wife.

"I was informed you weren't going to be traveling to Naath with us." He informs Brienne with a crisp formality.

"My duties require me elsewhere, Your Highness." She tells him, giving Jaime the ghost of a smile. He nods.

"I didn't want to leave without issuing thanks on behalf of my people, for the role you have played in our survival."

"It was nothing." She tells him, causing her husband to scoff and Pod to snort. The baby lets a lusty yell when he does and Brienne finds herself turning towards them, her arms reaching out for her child. The High Priest watches her with interest as Pod hands him over.

"That's not how your people tell it." He sniffs, and she blushes in that luscious way she has that makes Jaime's insides stir.

"I'm concerned their fear for my life may have caused them to amplify my heroics a bit, Sir."

"You are, as far as we know, the only one to survive the poison. I'd say that's worth some amplification."

"Thank you, Your Highness."

"Your boy?" She nods, holding Jon to her chest. "He is also well?"

"He is." She smiled, turning him outward.

"I wish nothing but peaceful partnerships between our people for his lifetime, and beyond it." The man tells her softly, nodding at the babe.

"That is our wish as well." Jaime says softly, as the man turns slowly towards him.

"I look forward to our future correspondence then Master Lannister." He sighs.

"I'll be in touch Your Highness." Her husband smiled, following the man and his people out of the tent.

"Next time perhaps We'll come to Westeros." He tells Jaime

"We'd love to receive you, Sir." He blinks, watching the Gish descend the hill and disappear into the sea of tents.

* * *

It takes two weeks to get to Casterly Rock and by the time they pull in to Lannisport they've caught sight of the children on the shore.

Any thoughts of Kings, Kingsguard or Kings Landing has gone from Brienne's mind completely when Ren has hopped over the barricade and climbed his father like a tree before he's even off the docking ramp. And Jaime Lannister has collapsed on the ground clutching the little boy to him, his flesh fingers splayed out against his unruly blond curls.

After her father has taken the babe from her and Ty and Tom have come to greet her, Jaime sits in the sand with his boy, the one most in his image, examining his missing teeth and running his hand across his freckled face.

The wildlings have found their parents and Sansa is sobbing as she clutches the twins to her and suddenly Brienne isn't sure she ever wants to return to King's Landing again.

She sees that for the first time Tyrion has to look up at his oldest girl and her heart clenches, as he reaches to push a stray lock behind Lyanna's ear and she leans forward into his embrace.

She catches Jaime's gaze as he stands pulling Ren's legs around his waist to hug Tomsyl to him while Ty is examining his newest little brother like his is a work of art. Her husband clasps his hand on his shoulder, pressing his lips together tightly while soft wrinkles and creases surrounding his green cat like eyes that wouldn't dare look away from hers. It's then she smiles, then she relishes, for just a minute, that they are the Lannisters of Casterly Rock and they are home.


End file.
